Name:Daler Ghumman
Age:88
Gender:Male
Personality:Daler Ghumman is a cranky old man in the real world. All he wants to do is have his three meals a day, meditate, and sleep. Politics and cataclysms aren't his problem and he'd much rather simply turn over and go back to sleep than interfere in worldly problems.
When he's not being a grump, he's rather kindly and both listens and grants advice to those who come to see him. This is usually during his meals. Even when he's upset, though, he listens to others and mulls over their words in his head until he can come up with a suitable answer - and an apology for any misbehavior on his part.
His youth is
long behind him, but he still remembers it well, along with all of the drama, love, and pain that came with it. Despite decades of meditation, he hasn't reached enlightenment and as far as he's concerned, the day he reaches that point is the day he dies. He's completely okay with that and as such does not fear death.
Backstory:Daler Ghumman was born to a poor farming family in the Doaba district of Punjab, India. He had twelve siblings, all of whom assisted with labor around the farm. An abusive father drove them to work as hard as possible at all times at the cost of their feelings of self worth, and by the time Daler was twelve years old, he was completely broken. In his depression, Daler regularly found himself sleeping rather than playing with other children, and over time, his dreams came to feel more real than the outer world.
At fourteen, he fell asleep and never completely woke up. In his endless dream, he carried on his daily activities, but found that if he listened carefully, he could hear the thoughts of his friends, his family, his family's livestock. Two more years of his waking dream passed and one day, while he was listening, he found that he could speak back to the voices of those around him. Rumors of Daler's witchcraft spread around his home village quickly and he was thrown out by his family to preserve their image. Those same rumors made their way back to the Institute, who sent a single representative to investigate. The search took months, during which time Daler had converted from his family's Sikhism to Mahayana Buddhism.
The conversation when they finally met was a short one. Daler was offered a place to stay, food to eat, and a new family - and he accepted with no strings attached.
Years passed at the Institute in which his telepathic abilities were honed to a razor sharp edge, and he became an instructor. Twenty years of teaching students went by uneventfully, and he retired from that position in good standing to return to his meditation and dreaming.
The Institute permitted him to stay. Eventually he discovered that he enjoyed conversing with troubled students and returned to a staff role at the Institute as the head of discipline.
Appearance:
The most striking things about Daler are his thinness, his beard, and his turban, in that order. The man is nearly skeletal but otherwise appears to be in good health. A long grey beard sweeps downwards from his old, weathered face. The purple turban sitting atop his head is slightly large, indicating that he hasn't cut his hair in a very, very long time. This is more of a personal choice, as he is no longer bound to Sikh beliefs but never bothered changing his style. He is and always has been too set in his ways to even consider changing his fashion sense.
Equipment:A very old hardwood stick which he uses as a cane.
Abilities:Shaking his cane at bothersome youngsters.
Intense meditation.
Sleeping.
Listening.
Daler makes the best curry on campus when he can be bothered with getting up and cooking.
Channeller category:Alternative - Telepath
Description of power:Daler is an immensely powerful telepath. While he prefers not to speak physically, he is perfectly willing to speak through others' minds. Provided another willingly enters Daler's mind, he has total control over his 'headspace', including all powers present in that world.
In the real world, he is only capable of projecting an image of a doorway, which another must walk through to enter his world.
Names/descriptions of moves:Headspace: Daler creates a psychic projection of a doorway in the real world, and anybody who intentionally touches that doorway momentarily lapses into a deep sleep where they stand as they enter his world. Perception of time in Daler's headspace is accelerated dramatically as with any dream and 'classes' within this world are typically over within five minutes of real time.
Daler is unable to directly harm another's real body, but within his headspace, all things very much feel real, and he actively pursues gifting new understandings of the world to others. Those who are knocked unconscious or given a mortal wound in his world wake up in the real world with no lasting consequences beyond the memory. Daler himself is not exempt from this, though in this world he appears as a much younger and more athletic man and is more than capable of defending himself.
Headache: Daler, using his telepathy to an extreme extent, provides the target within his headspace an understanding of his experiences and emotions. It is overwhelming to most and a sensory overload disrupts their ability to focus.
Understand One Another: Daler forces the dream to deepen and become more bizarre. Targets of his choice are forced into one anothers' bodies and minds, granting one another some insight into their motivations at the time. Upon release of this technique, all targets swap back to their own minds and bodies, waking them up from the deeper dream with new insight into their swap partner. This requires active consent as minds are extremely difficult to reposition, even in Daler's world.
Conjure: Daler imagines a person, a creature, an object, whatever - and in doing so it pops into existence within his headspace. It isn't fully conscious no matter the form, and can only react in ways that Daler instructs it to. These conjured images can vary wildly and carry their own powers as Daler understands them from years of observation of students and teachers at the Institute. They are not an adequate substitute for a real person in the fields of Channelling that they can take (predominantly Wavecasting), but they are potentially numerous.
Class is Over: All people within his headspace are ejected back into their bodies in the real world with no lasting negative consequences beyond memories. The door is always present, though, and if a student can reach it, they are permitted to leave early.
Other:His arthritis prevents him from taking part in strenuous physical activities.
Institute role:Detention Counselor
Why they were chosen for the Institute:As a teenager, Daler came to the Institute to learn. He never bothered leaving, and when he reached the age of twenty-four, he was selected as an instructor due to his expertise in the ways of the mind.
